Kizingo Arts Troupe from Mombasa also mesmerized art enthusiasts

The eighth edition of the ZIFF Festival of the Dhow Countries (July 1-10, 2005) ended in Zanzibar on July 10 with women scooping five of the eight major film awards.

Tanzanian feature film director debutant Beatrix Mugishagwe and her equally rookie Kenyan counterpart Christine Bala each took away two awards with their films, Tumaini (Childhood Robbed) and Babu’s Babies, respectively. Tumaini received the newly introduced UNICEF Children’s and Human Rights Award for its “depiction of children orphaned by AIDS, who persevere to survive and grow” while Babu’s Babies was declared the best East African Production for “showing the hopeless situation of a common man fighting for survival.”

Both films also shared the East African Production award presented by the SIGNIS jury of the World Catholic Association for Communication. While Babu’s Babies revolves around rural-urban migration, Tumaini tackles the plight of children orphaned by AIDS and how their rights are trampled underfoot by those meant to cushion them against the vagaries of life. Tumaini, in Kiswahili with English subtitles, is likely to have wider appeal not just among the 120-million Kiswahili-speaking Eastern Africa but also across the world.

The SIGNIS Feature Film award went to Perumazhakkalam (When it rains hard) of India, its commendation went to Khakestar-O-Khak (Earth and Ashes) of Afghanistan. While Special mention in the Shorts/Animation films went to Lamokwang (Calabash) by Uganda-based Congolese Petna Ndaliko Katondolo for being “an attempt at cinematic experimentation using African codes and idioms,” Through my Eyes by Kenyan Kavila Matu and Rwandan Eric Kabera that was described by the jury as “a hope expressed by the youth in healing the tragic and scarred memories of the recent past” received a nod in the UNICEF Child Rights Award as did Indonesian Ravi Bharwani’s Impian Kemarau (The Rainmaker) that was singled out in the Feature films category for its “attempt to use the language of cinema in a poetic and often sensuous way.”

No silver Dhow was awarded in the Short/ Animation film category as the jury said they could not get any film suitable for it. Although more than nine animated films—Africa Animated (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), The Governor’s Secret (Iran), Prince Loseno (Congo), After and Lightman (UK), Fallen Art (Poland), Ludmilla (Denmark), the 1917-made classics Easy Street and The Immigrant (USA)—were screened and judged, the jury lumped Short and Animation films in one category that saw the latter lose out to the former. It was also unclear why no awards were made in the Environmental category during the Awards Night graced by Zanzibari First Lady, Shadia Karume, on July 8, 2005 although a statement from the Press department said such a category had been considered. In a departure from tradition that has seen the ZIFF Board of Directors present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Tanzanians, Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cisse was awarded alongside Kasamali Gulam (popularly known as Miwani Ndogo) of Zanzibar. In the past, Tanzania-based Congolese musician Remmy Ongala (Ramadhan Mtoro Ongala-Mungamba) and Zanzibari Kiswahili poet Haji Gora Haji, have received this award. Cisse, who was to have been guest of honour during the awards ceremony, failed to arrive in Zanzibar.

With awards presented largely to absent directors, the awards ceremony was marred by communication cables that could not stretch far and microphones that went into epileptic fits as Shangilia Mtoto wa Afrika of Nairobi who brought soulful choral music to the Spice islands were challenged by a tiny space and hard floor of the amphitheatre that is not meant for acrobatic work. Unlike the previous year, it was felt that the audience did not have a sense of ownership of this ZIFF-organised festival as they did not vote for their favourite film. Also equally unclear was why only one award was presented in the East African Production category unlike in the past where three have been presented. If it was due to unavailability of films, no one could tell.

A section of journalist and filmmakers who attended the ZIFF/SACOD film critics workshop

Dieudonne Mweze Ngangura’s 2005 attempt to blend European fairy tales, Congolese music and Bollywood flair into an African audience-pleasing film, Les Habits Neufs Du Gouverneur (The Governor’s New Clothes), failed to impress the three juries that did not even give it a special mention despite having opened the festival in which Ngangura was also the chief guest. Speaking to ArtMatters.Info after the screening of his film, Ngangura—who has over the years been criticized for insisting on making film on celluloid—admitted to having changed his mind saying “It is good for Africans to switch to new technologies. I am moving towards new technologies in filmmaking.”

He said he had made The Governor’s new Clothes on DV-Cam “due to economic reasons” as film labs and other infrastructure required for celluloid do not exist in Africa. “The character of Makassy, played by Papa Wemba, also led me to shoot on video,” he said. “I used European technicians as Africa lacks such professionals.” Through The Governor’s New Clothes, a musical comedy on how power corrupts, Ngangura gives music socio-political potency. “I show how political power corrupts leaders and populations. No one wants to criticize politicians who in turn tend to believe whatever flatteries they hear from their supporters. Everyone, except the innocent children, is corruptible,” he said. Saying all his films always have happy endings, Ngangura said he could have a few bad characters but “not too many as I am connected to my characters.” The Brussels-based Bukavu-born Ngangura, who has in the past made films like Pieces d’identites (winner of Grand Prize at FESPACO in 1999), Le Roi, la Vache et le Bananier (The King, The Cow and The Banana Tree; winner of Best Documentary and Special Prize of the Jury at Festival Vues d’Afrique in Montreal in 1994), Kin Kiesse (Best Documentary Prize in FESPACO 1983), and La Vie est Belle (Life is rosy), said “Africa makes films for Western film festivals because there is no market for them” in the mother continent. Although made in Kinshasa and featuring popular stars like Papa Wemba, Felix Wazekwa, Ma Misamu, and Bebe Chan, Ngangura said the film was yet to be screened in the African capital of music. Written and directed by Ngangura, The Governor’s New Clothes is based on the popular Danish author Hans Christian Andersen’s 1835 children’s story, The Emperor’s new Clothes. Ngangura says the film extends his musical vision of cinema “as I had the dialogues sung, alternating with choreographed numbers. The songs in the film are inspired by contemporary Congolese music which was born in Kinshasa from the mixing of hundreds of ethnic groups which came to constitute, since the beginning of the 1940s, a popular urban culture…music is the only integrating element for this country undergoing a political and economic crisis.” This film is as interesting as it is entertaining. However, one feels Ngangura takes too long (87 minutes) in saying what he should have accomplished in, say, 60 minutes. With three panels of judges, the main ZIFF jury—that comprised Danish Anne Lise Andreasen, Tanzanian Ghonche Materego, American Harold Weaver, and Indian Arvind Sinha—said they saw and discussed 30 films from 20 nations. Eight of the nine feature, 13 documentary and eight short films were from East Africa.

The SIGNIS jury had Ugandan Dominic Dipio, Kenyan Mary Gitau Otuka, Zambian Moses Hamungole and Australian Peter Malone. Hassouna Mansouri of Tunisia, Jean Marie Mollo Olinga (Cameroon), LI Cheuk-to (Hong Kong) and Belinda van de Graaf (Holland) comprised the jury of the International Federation of Film Journalists and Critics (FIPRESCI) who gave their award to Maseko’s DRUM for its historical importance.

Other events complementing the ZIFF Festival of the Dhow Countries included workshops, exhibitions, performing arts, a fashion show, and a literary forum. Among the workshops of interest were Interactive storytelling (facilitated by Finnish film, television and theatre director Jori Polkki), Exploring human rights through film documentaries and media (facilitated by Tanzanian filmmaker and academic Dr Martin Mhando and Kenyan arts and culture critic Ogova Ondego), and The art of short film (facilitated by Kenyan film director Kenneth Olembo). Tribute was paid to filmmaker, painter, sculptor and poet Sao Gamba (1940-2004) through the screening of Imashoi ol Masae (People of the Red Ochre) and exhibition of paintings and sculpture. One of eastern Africa’s pioneer professional filmmakers, Kenyan Gamba was the first African to attend the world famous Polish National Film School in 1964.

He made more than 20 documentaries and Kolormask, the first feature film to be made by an African in Kenya in 1986 before going into recluse and taking up painting through which he transferred scripts onto canvases. Some of his paintings and sculptures on life, death and the aftermath that were exhibited at the historical Beit-el-Ajaib museum in Zanzibar included ‘Jadil Gero’ and ‘Bird of prey’.

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